Anselm’s Governmental Atonement

Anselm’s Governmental Atonement February 9, 2013

Cur Deus Homo is typically viewed as the classic statement of the “satisfaction” theory of atonement. I think the accent of Anselm’s argument lies elsewhere.

To be sure, satisfactio is a central term and satisfaction a central concept in the treatise. Anselm seems to use the term in much the same way as it was understood in Roman law, where satisfacere meant in general “to fulfill another’s wish, to gratify the desire of a person; when used of a debtor = to carry out an obligation whatever its origin” (Adolf Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Ser., V. 43, Pt. 2.) , 690). Satisfacere was sometimes opposed to solutio (payment) to refer to “other kinds of extinction of an obligation”: satifactio pro solutione – satisfaction in lieu of payment of a debt.

The surface of Anselm’s argument fits neatly into these categories. He describes the problem of sin as a problem of indebtedness. Humans are indebted to God by virtue of creation. We owe Him everything, specifically a debt of obedience and honor. Sin dishonors God, and therefore sinners are in default. Besides, we willingly incurred the extra debt of sin; we have stolen His honor, and we add further to our debt thereby. What do we have to make up the deficit? We already owe everything; how can we pay back more than everything? We need a Redeemer who can take our debt, who can pay satisfactio pro solutione on our behalf.

Beneath the surface, the question is why God can’t just forgive the debt, as the king does in Matthew 18. In trying to answer that question, Anselm moves away from satisfactio toward dispositio .

In the dialog (1.19), Boso (Anselm’s dialog partner) refers to the petition of the Lord’s prayer, dimitte nobis debita nostra and asks why we pray in that way. If we are already paying the debt, there’s no reason why we should ask for it to be forgiven. If we are not paying, it is “pointless” to pray ( cur frustra oramus ) that it be remitted. Why? Because God cannot remit an unpaid debt. And why is that? Because it is not “convenient,” not fitting ( quia non convenit ).

Why unfitting? Anselm (1.24) explains that it is impossible for God to remit debt simply on the “ground that [the sinner] is incapable of making repayment.” In fact, he claims that it is logically impossible for God to do so. Anselm examines two possibilities.

First: If God forgives a debt that the debtor is willing but unable to repay, He is remitting what He is not able to get anyway ( dimittit Deus quod habere non potest ). Anselm considers this a “mockery” ( derisio ) and not true misericordia . It is difficult to know what Anselm means here. It is perhaps something along these lines: My parents gave me life, fed and clothed and sheltered me, ensured that I got an education, etc. Since it’s a debt I can never repay, it would be foolish for my parents to say “We forgive your debt.” They were never going to get repayment in the first place, so their forgiveness is empty. If this is what Anselm means, there is perhaps some force in it (it implies that release from such a debt is more psychological than financial). But not much force. Isn’t forgiveness of a debt by definition a remission of a debt that the creditor is not going to receive anyway? Isn’t that precisely what the king (representing the heavenly Father) does in Matthew 18? Forgiving a debt that cannot be paid certainly is not self-contradictory ( contrarium ), as Anselm claims.

On the other hand, God might intend to exact “repayment” involuntarily through punishment. In this scenario too it is not fitting for God simply to forgive debts because such mercy would relax punishment and leave the person happy in his sin. The debtor’s incapacity to repay is his own fault, and is sin. God would condone sin if he allowed the incapacity to pass. Again, this is not true misericordia , since it is travesty of God’s justice. This is a more convincing explanation than the first, but it is important to note that we have moved out of the realm of debt and repayment into the realm of government. What prevents God from exercising “pure” mercy is His justice, expressed in punishment. The claim that God demands satisfactio rests on the more fundamental claim about God’s dispositio of the world’s order.

In understanding why Anselm thinks “pure” mercy unfitting to God, the key passage is in 1.15: Once humans have sinned, there are two alternatives – “voluntary recompense for wrongdoing, or the exaction of punishment from someone who does not give recompense.” Why not a third alternative, forgiveness without recompense? Anselm answers: “If the divine Wisdom did not impose these forms of recompense in cases where wrongdoing is endeavouring to upset the right order of things, there would be in the universe, which God ought to be regulating, a certain ugliness, resulting from the violation of the beauty of order, and God would appear to be failing in his governance ( in sua dispositione ). Since these two consequences are impossible as they are unfitting ( inconvenientia ), it is inevitable that recompense or punishment follows every sin.” God would damage the beauty of creation, would fail in His governance, if He indulged in the false mercy of pure forgiveness. Satisfactio is necessary for governmental and aesthetic reasons, which in this passage are virtually identical.

For clarity: To call Anselm’s atonement theory “governmental” doesn’t imply that it is wrong, nor am I proposing any positive atonement theory. This is simply an exercise in exegesis, an attempt to answer the question, What drives Anselm’s atonement theory?


Browse Our Archives